Why you shouldn’t read important speeches

Liz Coleman, the President of Bennington College, has some terrific ideas about reforming liberal arts education. She presented them at TED in February 2009. Many people will never appreciate Coleman's ideas, however, because she presented them in a long paper filled with redundant and sesquipedalian (!*) terms. To top it off, she chose to read her speech in monotone rather than speaking from her heart. Coleman's decision to read her speech rather than presenting it with spontaneous enthusiasm undercuts the very message of her paper. She violated a basic rule of speech-making: Don't bore your audience with good content deficiently presented. Why can't the highly educated C0leman see this conspicuous problem with her own delivery? Why can't she understand that many people (even the smart sorts of people who attend TED lectures, have lots of trouble paying attention to liberal arts college presidents who read pedantic speeches? For starters, she needs to keep in mind that the Internet audience is not a captive audience motivated by the pursuit of grades. Yes, ordinary Americans need to become more disciplined at being attentive audiences. They need to learn to persevere when difficult ideas are presented, even when those ideas aren't sugar-coated. On the other hand, academics (Coleman is one example of many) really need to get out of their ivory towers and learn to talk to real people without sounding condescending. One suggestion: Coleman should study Barack Obama, who often knows his material well enough to talk off-the-cuff. He has also learned to present pre-written presentations in a fresh, spontaneous-sounding way. I'm not suggesting that everyone can deliver ideas like Obama, but all us can take the time study the various techniques he often uses. Before getting to work studying her new technique, Coleman should carefully watch her TED presentation and ask herself whether her delivery would even keep her own interest. She should ask what so many academics should ask: was her speech designed primarily to move her audience or was it (perhaps subconsciously) designed to show off her own vocabulary and intellectual superiority, amply laced with uppity intonation? If there is even an unintentional hint of these, she's lost her audience. --

*sesquipedalian 1. given to using long words. 2. (of a word) containing many syllables.

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Bush Administration destroyed cancer research center and scattered the researchers

Affiliated Press - May 13, 2009 Recently discovered secret documents indicate that, in 2006, the Bush Administration ordered the destruction of a major cancer research center and banned the doctors and researchers from ever again communicating with each other. Dr. Rod Nym, former Director of the center, recently agreed to discuss this disturbing incident with the Affiliated Press. Nym indicated that the towering brick and mortar research center had its genesis several years ago thanks to a large grant by the Marduk Foundation. The Center was built in the middle-east corridor of the tri-state region to bring together hundreds of cancer researchers from all corners of the globe. Even though the researchers and doctors came from many different countries and spoke many different languages, they were able to communicate efficiently thanks to special software installed throughout the center. The software was similar to Babelfish, and it instantly translated any language into any other language, enabling the researchers to collaborate to an extent never before seen in an international research team.

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Bacteria that talk to each other

Bonnie Bassler, who teaches molecular biology at Princeton, explains that bacteria don't just grow and divide, grow and divide. They speak to each other and with other species of bacteria through their chemicals. Bassler studies how bacteria use chemical signals to act as coordinated social units. In this delightful TED talk, Bassler discusses how her research group has studied the manner in which bacteria talk to each other. They make chemical "words" to enable group activities (such as triggering the timing for effective virulence attacks), sensing each other through their "quorum-sensing molecules." They can also sense the difference between themselves and other bacteria. Note that each of us is 99% bacterial. Our human body consists of about one trillion of "our own" cells, but ten trillion bacteria. We have about 30,000 of "our own" genes, but we carry about 100 times more bacterial DNA than human DNA. Bacteria live as "mutualists" with us. They help us digest our food, make our vitamins, protects us from other pathogens and help us survive in numerous other ways. Rather than using antibiotics to kill bacteria (which inevitably selects for more virulent strains), Bassler suggests that a better understanding of the communications schemes used by bacteria is allowing scientists to develop potent new medicines. This is an upbeat and informative talk regarding a most ancient form of life.

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Another well-deserved attack on rationality

Why do we do the things we do? Why did you propose that woman, for instance? Or why did you accept a job offer from that man? The January 29, 2009 edition of Nature (available online only to subscribers) takes a look at this question in an article by Mark Buchanan titled "Secret Signals: Are People's Interactions Driven by a Primitive, Not Linguistic Type of Communication?" Scientists have determined that there is a second channel of human communication that (often) acts in parallel with our rational thinking and verbal communication. It's difficult to pin down power and scope of this non-linguistic ability, however. Recently, computer scientist Alex Pentland has started using wearable electronic devices in order to study our ability to communicate using non-linguistic behavior. It is Pentland's aim to try to assist organizations to make better use of their personnel based upon this ubiquitous and powerful hidden communication. Many people resist the idea that many of our choices are not determined by "conscious intentions and deliberate choices." It's time to stop resisting, however. For example, our behavior is highly determined by our social context rather than our innate "character." On this topic I've often recommended an excellent book titled The Person and the Situation, by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett. See also, this earlier DI post titled "Laughing at not funny things, and the limits of introspection."

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